Fall Annabelles

This is how my Annabelles look right now.

They aren't much to look at, are they? Sort of browny-greenish, and translucent with the sunshine coming through the leaves. (That's Middle Son's pumpkin sitting in a place of honor on the front porch...there's some hydrangea vine going up the brick of the house face...you can see a little of the backyard.) Anyway, not much for looks—but wait. In the spring they're one of the first to show tender green leaves. Their buds come on way before the big blue hydrangeas and long before the pink diamond hydrangeas. Every year, I consider cutting them off, they look SO dead—and it is the front of the house. I've never been able to bring myself to do it. They come back better every year, always giving me a baby or two to transplant or share.

"And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To Him be the power for ever and ever. Amen." 1 Peter 5: 10-11.

Thanks be to Him, I want to give Him glory for fulfilling this in my earthly life. He has given me a remission from rheumatoid arthritis! The disease first came into my life (OUR lives—it affects the entire family) in 1990, in my second year of teaching inner city first grade and my second year of marriage. I enjoyed spotty relief during my childbearing years, but RA returned with a vengeance after Youngest Son's birth in 1999. I've been through all sorts of medications and complications, and finally, have been given a reprieve from the pain. I saw the hand of the Lord so many times during those dry, browny-greenish years, when the health of my body was certainly looking dead, just like the picture above. The recent good news of a new remission has me feeling like the Annabelle in the spring—bursting with health and promise.